AuthorTopic: GR#219 - Steamfantry - Sprite Process  (Read 35847 times)

Offline BatElite

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Re: Heavy Infantry

Reply #20 on: October 02, 2014, 10:02:14 pm
The perspective of the bullet belt seems of to me, appearing to recede into the background and then somehow going into a gun closer to us.
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Offline Cyangmou

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Re: Heavy Infantry

Reply #21 on: October 02, 2014, 10:50:00 pm
pretty much finished colored version.



What, really? You pixel in grey, then color later? I . . . don't think I've seen anyone do that unless of course they're just mapping a color ramp over the palette.
How are you going about doing this?
Did you do this with either the earlier done girl or crow?
Very curious. You're one of the faster pixellers I know of so I'd like to know more if you feel like sharing.

Well making grayscale first and adding color later is much slower. It doesn't really make sense from the efficiency.
How I do it... I just put the color on top of it.
Both, crow and girl used that process.
Since the designs are really complex this take long, but it saves me a lot of headache in the process, which I would have if I'd go with pure color first.

I'm a little surprised to see reflective chrome-like surfaces on him. They look cool, though.
Polished metal seems a little out of place, to me, because I guess I was assuming this guy to be more of a grungier, industrial type.
But some flashy, showier parts is interesting because it implies these guys have pride in what they do and so they keep their exoskeletons nice looking. Like a soldier that obsessively clean and polishes his gun/gear.

not much chrome, aside from the exhaust pipes, the shining parts are copper. I have there also brass, iron steel and some other textures, I also actually wanted to find out how much variety I can achieve with something which consists just out of various types of metal. Guess it looks interesting enough.
The copper parts are clean, while the iron is old and rough and the rust was brushed off.

You decreased the diameter of the upper arm pieces. Are you sure there's enough space inside for a man's upper arm?
Even the overlaid figure GIF you made doesn't appear to fit.
Even at a glance, the upper arms' armor seems much too small.
I can only imagine a rather tough looking guy wearing the suit, and therefore I'd expect him to be rather muscular.
I know he'd have the engine-assisted hydraulics and all that, but still.

Increased that significantly. ALso was much easier to see with color.

What would a guy be wearing, inside the suit?
When he takes it off, after battle, what does he have on? Would it be something like a pair of long-johns?

something like that, some parts will be padded with cloth and leather. Inside the armor it will be pretty hot, outside the.

For the back foot, raise the heel up like you did in the figure sketch, you could do a bit more to show the top plane of the foot instead of the front plane. Also the scale of the back leg might be a little off; it's not far enough back in space to be that much smaller than the front.

actually I rechecked it and made the foot a bit bigger.
Actually regarding to the concept the foot don't has a rolling movent, the front part always sits on the ground and there are pistons which will move the sole, in this position the upper copper plates will overlap.
Despite that I think it's looking better and more natural now.

Really great rendering as usual. I do think the weight of the figure is still off. The left leg is occupying space on the same plane as the right side of the body while the left side mass is beyond that. Nothing is supporting the left side of the body. Additionally the big metal shield is pushing the overall center of gravity to the left.

fixed that a little bit. The left vanishing point also was moved a bit more to the right since the first pencil version. Regarding the grid it looks somewhat ok, the legs could be spread wider but also would cause problems with pixel perfec tlines then, I am a bit limited on snapped angles.
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Offline AlcopopStar

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Re: Heavy Infantry

Reply #22 on: October 03, 2014, 01:34:23 am
I said "hot damn" out load when I saw the colored version. You've added a lot of life to the image.

Minor qualm, but I think a lot of the issues on weight that people are bringing up are being accentuated by those upward curving spiked sections of the boots. They are a very cool idea design wise but I feel like they might be sabotaging the stability of the pose a little, as they are a touch confusing to read (can't tell where the foot is at first glance). Going for something a touch more ordinary would ground the figure more dramatically, and a figure as heavy as this could really use it.

Beyond that, lovely pixeling as always.

Offline Fizzick

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Re: Heavy Infantry

Reply #23 on: October 03, 2014, 02:05:46 am
Not to get too nitpicky here, but there's a pixel near the lower half of the shield I think should be moved a pixel to the left.
Seriously though, awesome. Alcopop might be right. Is it just me or does the lower half of the shield's strap not have a shadow?

Offline jtfjtfjtf

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Re: Heavy Infantry

Reply #24 on: October 03, 2014, 04:57:25 am
fixed that a little bit. The left vanishing point also was moved a bit more to the right since the first pencil version. Regarding the grid it looks somewhat ok, the legs could be spread wider but also would cause problems with pixel perfec tlines then, I am a bit limited on snapped angles.

I'm not sure about the terminology of the pixel perfect lines and snapped angles, that's new to me. I suppose it boils down to artistic liberty.
For future reference one easy way to find weight without full perspective is just to draw a line from the center mass straight down. The support elements, in this case the legs, should be pretty much equal distances from that point. With the piece it's right behind the left foot, making it too close to that foot and too far from the right foot. The whole weight being off just seems incongruous with the awesome meticulous level of reality based accuracy for everything else.

Offline Cyangmou

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Re: Heavy Infantry

Reply #25 on: October 03, 2014, 08:53:31 am
I'm not sure about the terminology of the pixel perfect lines and snapped angles, that's new to me. I suppose it boils down to artistic liberty.

boils down to pixel art cluster-cleanness and I am a fan of that =). After all it's pixel art.

For future reference one easy way to find weight without full perspective is just to draw a line from the center mass straight down. The support elements, in this case the legs, should be pretty much equal distances from that point. With the piece it's right behind the left foot, making it too close to that foot and too far from the right foot. The whole weight being off just seems incongruous with the awesome meticulous level of reality based accuracy for everything else.

Nope.
The center of mass should be a stable triangle if the figure is in a static pose.
As soon as we have an action pose or an about-to pose the center of gravity shifts and this rule doesn't count any more.
A walk is only possible because we shift weight and go through a sequence of controlled falls.
If we apply this "rule" you pointed out everywhere, it commonly leads to static images and here I have planned a bit more action in right from the beginning, without knowing how good it would work.
I think it looks a lot more dynamic and interesting than the crow. Maybe I should go back to a really dynamic standing pose, like one Creya has with the next figure, because that seems to work.

Not to get too nitpicky here, but there's a pixel near the lower half of the shield I think should be moved a pixel to the left.
Seriously though, awesome. Alcopop might be right. Is it just me or does the lower half of the shield's strap not have a shadow?

ah yeah forgot the shadow on the lower half.
Can you point out that other pixel, make it red or draw a circle around the area?

Minor qualm, but I think a lot of the issues on weight that people are bringing up are being accentuated by those upward curving spiked sections of the boots. They are a very cool idea design wise but I feel like they might be sabotaging the stability of the pose a little, as they are a touch confusing to read (can't tell where the foot is at first glance). Going for something a touch more ordinary would ground the figure more dramatically, and a figure as heavy as this could really use it.

I liberally go here for the design aspect. A tleast I know now, that for toher shoe and foot designs I won't work with length shifting mechanical parts, if it's for humans =)
« Last Edit: October 03, 2014, 09:02:57 am by Cyangmou »
"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

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Offline jtfjtfjtf

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Re: Heavy Infantry

Reply #26 on: October 03, 2014, 12:31:14 pm
Nope.
The center of mass should be a stable triangle if the figure is in a static pose.
As soon as we have an action pose or an about-to pose the center of gravity shifts and this rule doesn't count any more.
A walk is only possible because we shift weight and go through a sequence of controlled falls.
If we apply this "rule" you pointed out everywhere, it commonly leads to static images and here I have planned a bit more action in right from the beginning, without knowing how good it would work.
I think it looks a lot more dynamic and interesting than the crow. Maybe I should go back to a really dynamic standing pose, like one Creya has with the next figure, because that seems to work.

I think with both feet being somewhat flat on the ground in the picture and the heavy armor and shield it looks like he has the motions of taking a step and stabilizing, taking another step and stabilizing. And the snapshot of that movement is in the stabilizing frame, so that makes me think of his weight and position having to be stable more than thinking he exists in dynamic motion. Of course it's possible he's really quick because he has those hip wheel treads and he's mid run or jog but with that I think going even more dynamic like emphasizing lifting the back foot, adding more bend to the knees/ankles, having the shield held higher for more protection because he's running into an action zone, or even adding a smoke trail from his exhausts which are connected to the engine that powers the treads would help. Especially since the center line can't be stretched/broken with the set-in place armor and helmet. I certainly like that you decided to do more of an action shot for this one and i'm really looking forward to the next piece in the series.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2014, 02:20:23 pm by jtfjtfjtf »

Offline Night

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Re: Heavy Infantry

Reply #27 on: October 03, 2014, 01:03:12 pm
Was really tired the last couple of days so I didn't add any critique; seems like I missed a lot.

You work really fast I must say!


Not much to say anymore, but there are still a few things bothering me, still particularly on the rear leg.
The lower decorative part of knee cop should appear more since it's pointing downwards more than the front one, furthermore the shadow cast on the knee cop from the upper decorative part should be more apparent because, again, it's pointing downwards more.
The foot itself should just be slightly bigger, or wider for that matter, and should probably also cover up the scale-like armour on the back.

The upper part of the body could use some alterations too, perhaps make it wider to create a stronger impression. The gun case, in my opinion should be closer to the arm, or rather, appear as if it's behind the elbow directly. Another minor thing in the upper body is the visor(?), which looks like it's emitting light, in which case I'd make a slight highlight and a source of light coming from the back.

Some less crucial additions I've made are reflections.

Other part that bothers me a little is where light and dark areas are; mainly because it could bring out certain areas more (like the knee cops or the gun for an instance).

Additionally, the strap on the shield, which aside from being only one, seems really slim. So just making it bigger, and perhaps adding another one could fix that.



Something I wanted to mention earlier was to make the shield vertically held, but there's not much point to that now.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Offline Cyangmou

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Re: Heavy Infantry

Reply #28 on: October 03, 2014, 03:14:04 pm
worked in some of nights stuff
worked harder on the reflections
cleaned up a lot of spots
would say that's the final.

about the shield: yeah, too much change at this stage, since this would need a lot more pose changes.

« Last Edit: October 03, 2014, 06:25:52 pm by Cyangmou »
"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

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Offline Friend

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Re: Heavy Infantry

Reply #29 on: October 03, 2014, 09:09:55 pm
could the two slits in the top of the shield be cleaned up a bit?  On dark and medium backgrounds they look fine, but on light backgrounds they look sketch